Wood Weekly

The international financial crisis has put a damper on global trade of wood chips used for pulp manufacturing in 2009, reports Wood Resources International. The biggest decline has been in shipments from Australia, South Africa and Uruguay to Japan.

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The heart of the dispute is the claim the Canadian lumber industry is unfairly subsidized by the federal and provincial governments. Specifically, most timber in Canada is owned by provincial governments. The price charged to harvest the timber (the “stumpage fee”) is set administratively rather than through a competitive auction,